Welcome back to snow town Huskies! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. I know break was a little bit short, but we have more ex­citing stuff to do this semes­ter. Are you ready for Winter Carnival? I’m ready for sum­mer already.

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It’s that time of year; the time when we lighten up, the time when we all let go of a little bit of that Scrooge in us, the time when we sit in class daydreaming about the weeks to come. But not all Michigan Tech students are daydreaming about evergreen trees, homemade cookies, and Christmas carols. In fact, some of our students will be going home to winter holiday traditions that are much different.

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Dear Sassy,
I’m indecisive lately about my course of study at college. My major is turning out to be not quite what I expected, however I am set to graduate in a year and a half. Should I follow my true passion, or graduate with the degree I am pursuing and save time and money?
Sincerely,
Major Predicament

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Happy Thanksgiving!!

Please allow me to say this a week early. Because next week, you will be in your bedroom and enjoying break instead of reading my story in some lecture hall. Did your mom tell you a huge turkey is already in the freezer? Does the lucky bone still belong to you this year?
I had my first Thanksgiving with my roommate’s family last year. It made me feel like being with my own family. All the family members came back from different places. Thanksgiving dinner was the most delicious meal I have ever had. After the dinner, everyone sat in living room talking about his/her own story. Although I am not one of them, I still enjoyed the time to be with them.
Would you believe me if I told you that we don’t have turkey in China? Or, I should say we don’t have the Thanksgiving holiday. All the western holidays are so fresh to me. I had heard of them but never celebrated them.
Want to hear a funny story that happened to me last Christmas? I saw children standing in line to tell Santa their wishes when my friends and me were shopping in a pretty big mall. They had the idea that I should have a picture taken with Santa. Instead of paying the money, I had to lie to Santa that I came from China and had never heard about Santa before. I could see the incredible feeling from Santa’s eyes when I got the photo. Poor Santa…
What kind of holidays do we have then? The most famous Chinese holiday I think is Chinese New Year Eve and Spring Festival. People would like to call them Chinese New Year, but actually they are different. I just checked the calendar: 2010 Chinese New Year Eve is on February 13th. It is the last day of lunar year. Spring festival is the day right after that, which is the beginning of another year. 2010 will be the year of tiger. I believe Chinese student organizations will have some special events waiting for you, like Chinese night last year. Besides that, mid-autumn is also a pretty popular holiday. In the Chinese calendar, the moon gets most full among the whole year on August 15th. It is a family reunion holiday. Family members get together to celebrate it. Even if you can’t go back home at that time, you can still share the same full moon with your family. Isn’t that sweet? It is one of my favorite festivals. Because moon cakes are the most yummy food in the world!
I can give you a list of other Chinese holidays, see if you’ve heard about them or not. For example, Magpie Festival, which is Chinese Saint Valentine’s Day, Lantern Festival, Dragon Festival, Mourning Day, Chung Yeung Festival… Do they just blow your mind? Well, if I get chance, I can describe them for you later.
In the end, hope you all have a wonderful break. Drive safe and I’ll see you again the week after Thanksgiving!

It’s coming. The commercials are beginning to creep on television, the radio, and the Internet, calling like Sirens to consumers. Stores are plastering their windows with the signs of promised savings. Whispers and rumors of the hottest items circulate through offices and book clubs. Like the faint taste of blood attracting a swarm of sharks, shoppers are beginning to gather for the feeding frenzy that is Black Friday. It is a day that drains bank accounts, empties shelves, and even takes lives, like last year when several people were killed as a crowd stampeded into a store. The challenge Americans face is protecting their physical and financial well-being while still giving the numerous presents that Christmas obliges us to bestow on family and friends. The answer to the dilemma is a return to the homemade gifts that are becoming increasingly rare, like Tickle-Me-Elmos at Toys-R-Us the week before Christmas.
Although it may be hard to resist the shiny plastic and chrome of mass-manufactured goods and near impossible to turn away from the newest DVDs and video games, a homemade gift can say, and save, a lot.
As a young child, I recall making homemade gifts quite often. Besides having little spending money, I always considered my gifts (crudely constructed from colored paper and pipe cleaners) to be the apotheosis of a good Christmas present. My sculpture made from old paper clips was much better than a new sweater and my coupon for “one chore to be done without complaint” was far more valuable in my eyes (and in my parents’ I’m sure) than any jewelry. I turned up my nose at Hallmark Christmas cards and made my own; despite the reindeer having about twenty legs and Santa being a stick figure, I considered my homemade Christmas cards a masterpiece. The genuine pride and admiration that I had as a child for the gifts I gave illuminate the true meaning of a Christmas present. It is far better to give someone a small thing made of love, than a great thing bought out of desperation.
This year, far more Americans will be unwilling to open their wallets and exchange green for gifts. Does this mean a less meaningful Christmas? The answer is of course no, unless an individual is horribly materialistic. Some of the finest gifts I have ever received have been homemade such as a beautiful winter scarf, a warm blanket, and Christmas cookies. Not only did I appreciate the practical benefits of these gifts (warmth, comfort, and a full stomach), but I also deeply appreciated the time invested in them. Although a bit more refined that the gifts I made as a child, they mirror the same genuineness and thoughtfulness.
I encourage everyone to make a few homemade gifts this year whether they be knitted, baked, or glued. Find out a creative way to wish someone a happy holiday season. Not only will it make a meaningful lasting impression, but you avoid the risk of ending your days in the most undignified way imaginable: buried alive under an avalanche of Barbies, Transformers, and cookware at some God-forsaken department store.

It’s good to see you guys again! I had a very big struggle when I tried to think a good idea for my new article. The last couple weeks, I was so busy at my exams and team projects that I didn’t have time to think about my new topic. Hope you guys are all doing well. Also, I really want to save the Halloween one till next week—now you know what the next article about. Thank goodness, my ipod gave me an idea this morning: Music.
My first view of American music started from my residence hall last year. By coincidence, I was put in to Visual Performing Arts Learning Community. However, I don’t play any music. After the first couple weeks I found out almost everyone in my hall was a musician. My roommate Jacob had played piano for eight years and guitar for five years. Brock and Andy, my hall mates, played electric instruments. Alex and Spencer played guitar, Aaron played keyboard and Uzi played the cello… all in all, there could have been a couple bands in my hall. They taught me how to play guitar and piano and even wrote songs about me. We have lots of good memories to look back on.
I’m always jealous about Americans’ fantastic high school lives. My memory of high school is studying, studying, and studying. In China, we have more than seven times the population of America, but we have less than half the number of colleges. It means not everyone can get into college. For those top 10 colleges, only 1 percent of high school senior students can apply. Also, because of the score based on the grading system, we have to study a lot and try to get a higher score in exams than anyone else. I spent so much time on studying that I didn’t have time to learn other skills such as instrumental and computer skills.
After I started my new life here I think I got more chances to touch music, which I didn’t do too much back in China. I still remember that night when my friends and I went to my first concert in Calumet. Josh was so mad at me because he had to wake me up every 10 minutes. “Miles, you can’t just sleep in a concert in the front row!” he yelled at me when the concert was over. I feel so embarrassed that music always makes me sleepy (maybe because I couldn’t understand it or I’m not interest in it). Soon after that, I got another opportunity to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert last Christmas. This time, the band had a much bigger moveable stage and way more awesome laser lights and fireworks. That might be the biggest reason that I stayed awake from the beginning of the show to the end. It was too loud to fall asleep!
I went to a couple concerts at my hometown before. But they were just personal concerts instead of rock bands. When I told my friends I like pop, they thought I was an idiot. After that Christmas, I started collecting music from my friends. I begin to get used to American style songs after I tried almost all kinds of music. I do have some songs and bands that are my favorite. For example, AFI’s songs can help me stay awake and feel full of energy. If you walk by the Wads dish room, you can hear it from the front window. It’s also a dish room song.
I’m planning to learn guitar this year. Anyone interested to teach me?

The Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra will have their first performance of the season on Saturday, Oct. 17. The KSO, directed by Dr. Joel Neves, contains many Michigan Tech students in its membership. The theme of the concert is the 200th anniversary of composer Felix Mendelssohn, whose music to Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will be performed at the concert.
Mendelssohn was born in 1809, and became known as a musical prodigy early in life. He wrote his first symphonies at the age of 12, and wrote the Overture to “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 1826, when he was only 17 years old (the rest of the music was not written until 1843, 17 years later). Mendelssohn also composed a number of symphonies, concertos, and choral works. An except from one of these choral works, a celebration of the invention of the printing press, would later be adapted as the tune for the popular Christmas hymn “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
The concert is Dr. Neves’ first with the KSO. Dr. Neves has received B.A. and Master’s degrees in orchestral conducting from Brigham Young University, and a doctorate from Arizona State University. He has previously conducted the Orchestra of Southern Utah and the Cedar High Orchestra. In addition to his duties as conductor of the KSO, He is an Assistant Professor of Music at Michigan Tech, and teaches music theory and history.
The KSO concert begins at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 17. Tickets cost $15 to the general public and $7 for people age 18 or younger, and can be ordered online through Michigan Tech’s ticket service at www.tickets.mtu.edu. Tickets are free to Michigan Tech students with a Tech ID through the Experience Tech program.

The Major League Baseball season will officially begin this Sunday in Philadelphia with the defending World Series champion Philadelphia Phillies squaring off with the Atlanta Braves. For everyone who is as baseball crazed as me, Opening Day in the MLB is an event that hails right up there with Christmas. It signals the end of a dreary winter and the beginning of the hopefulness of spring. Here are a few things to look for in 2009.

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If the hockey Huskies’ season was a bad two-hour movie, you’d have turned it off after the first 10 minutes. Unfortunately for Huskies’ fans and players, it wasn’t. Instead, the Huskies won just six times all season and only twice after Christmas. To say this was a nightmare scenario barely does the season justice, but there are reasons to look forward to next season.

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Christmas is upon us and is drawing nearer by the moment. With so much excitement filling the air from the festivities at hand, it’s difficult for anyone to concentrate during exam week. And who can blame us, with so much to be excited for on the quickly-approaching horizon? We have Christmas break, family, delicious holiday treats, decorations, carols and holiday television specials to look forward to; but above all, the most highly-anticipated Christmas experience is the giving and receiving of gifts.

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